Fantagraphics Announces Mickey Mouse Reprints

Big news out of San Diego: Fantagraphics announced that they will be publishing a complete run of Floyd Gottfredson’s “Mickey Mouse” newspaper strip, which he drew daily between 1930 and 1975. As Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth says, “I think it’s the last truly great, masterful strip that has not been reprinted.” Here’s an interview with Groth with more details about the project, which begins in spring 2011.

Great news, but there are still tons of holes in the classic-strip library. Fantagraphics still hasn’t released the complete Pogo it started talking about years ago (and its earlier stab at doing a complete Pogo died early).Very little Polly and Her Pals was ever reprinted. Barnaby has not been in print since the 1980s. We need more Barney Google. And Gordo. Etc. Etc..

GhaleonQ

I mean, we’d all love broad reprints of every sort of Mickey Mouse comic, but, geez, we don’t even have Thimble Theatre pre-Popeye or a real version of fricking Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo In Slumberland. Never mind that his other work is either reprinted badly or not at all. The greatest comic strip in history (arguably) doesn’t have a real, complete edition out there. Let’s be thankful for what we can get.

http://uncleilas.blogspot.com davef

A german guy’s done this fantastic collection of rarebits- with additional cd-rom of ALL the rarebits ever done.
A lush, droolworthy book you’ll want to savor like a fine whisky, there was a limited print run of 1000. I have no idea if there are any left but hunt this down while it’s still available!

dbenson

There’s a lot of irony in the current wave of beautiful reprints. Many of the great strips received indifferent treatment in their glory days (Mickey was cut up and edited into comic book form, with replaced scenes in at least one story) and later attempts could only make a dent (for every complete Li’l Abner there were a dozen more, like King Aroo, that only existed as single samples and tantalizing descriptions in books). And now we’re finally seeing them in pristine form a generation or more after anybody remembers reading them in the paper.

http://animationreview.wordpress.com Gijs Grob

Wow, this is good news! I’ve been waiting for years for this to happen. Gottfredson’s comic strip belong to my all time favorite adventure/comedy strips, but I only have some scattered translations in Dutch. I’m definitely looking forward to spring 2011!

http://www.fernandopventura.blogspot.com Fernando Ventura

I hope Fantagraphics change their mind and print not “just” Gottfredson, but ALL Mickey strips, from 30′s to the 90′s. Year by year. I really love Gottfredson, but I also wan’t to read the Iwerk’s, the Manuel Gonzale’s, the Floyd Norman’s and the sitcom Mickey gag strips!

Thomas

I don’t quite understand the strip. But doesn’t east represent heaven to some people, and the fact that he has a plane, you know, to fly up to heaven?

http://www.daryl-rhystaylor.co.uk Daryl T

This is good news.

Mike Scibetta

Isn’t this what Eternity Comics tried to do with “The Uncensored Mouse” in 1989?

http://socata.net Dana Gabbard

Eternity had no license and tried to avoid trademark. After two issues they cut a deal with Disney which had sued which involved an end to the title.

http://justforspite.blogspot.com Gene Hole

this news made my day!

Tom

Actually, Eternity tried to do an end run around Disney by reprinting the Mickey content that Disney had allowed to lapse into public domain. The trademark was the thing that Disney used to stop them. It was an interesting moment in the Disney history, with more coming up shortly, no doubt.

I can see Disney granting Fanta the license just to prevent other companies from fighting to do the same thing illegally.

http://uncleilas.blogspot.com davef

Check this book out- reprints of the rarebit fiend, with a cd-rom of all of them.
A lush and beautiful work of art in itself- hunt this down!!

Is David Gerstein involved in this? Given his never-ending enthusiasm and knowledge about the classic Mickey Mouse, it would only be appropriate:)

Anyway, really looking forward to this series… let’s hope they do reprint every single strip, even the politcially uncorrect ones. And, oh, please let them include the few months’ worth of strips done by Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks and Win Smith in 1930, before Gottfredson came on board. It would be a wonderful bonus and make the collection feel truly complete from the start.

The Krazy Kat volumes are great, this should be awesome. Here’s food for thought, in the first few years of the strip’s run there is a story arc in which Mickey makes several attempts at suicide. We’re going to see a very different Mickey.

Michael Grabowski

I’m excited about this news and I hope the series is successful enough a) to last through completion and b) to result in a nice set of Sundays volumes as well. Hope #c) would be to get a collection of Taliafero’s Donald Ducks as well.